Bring on the Rabbits and Paramecia

At his Bench Marks blog, David Crotty notes that the January issue of CSH Protocols continues its series on emerging model organisms. This month’s picks were the rabbit and the paramecium. The rabbit has been used in in vitro fertilization as well as embryology and organogenesis studies and toxicology and an article from Christoph Viebahn and his colleagues discusses genomic tools for the rabbit, among others. Paramecium tetraurelia is free-living unicellular organism but is distantly related to other unicellular models and Eric Meyer and his colleagues say P. tetraurelia is “ideally suited for genetic analyses.” Previously highlighted organisms include Kalanchoë daigremontiana, yams and the Hawaiian Bobtail Squid.